1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic music selecting system used in an audio system installed in a mobile unit, and more particularly to a technique for carrying out music selection appropriately.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, an in-car audio system has been known which selects a piece of music at random from a plurality of pieces of music to play it back. However, it is not unlikely for the audio system to play back a piece of music unsuitable for the conditions of the vehicle or the mood of an occupant of the vehicle at that time, and hence an improvement is desired. In view of this, an in-car music reproduction system has been developed which can automatically select a piece of music associated with a particular district such as a song which features local attractions, and play it back (see Relevant Reference 1, for example).
The music reproduction system includes a locating section for identifying the current position of a vehicle in response to the detection data fed from a GPS antenna, a MIDI reproducing section for reproducing BGM, and a hard disk that stores music data. The hard disk contains a music data storing section that stores the MIDI data for BGM reproduction, a map-related information storing section that stores map-related information representing relationships between the music data and districts, and a district information storing section indicating the region to which the current position belongs. A CPU locates the district from the current position the locating section obtains, selects a piece of music associated with the district with reference to the map-related information storing section, and plays back the music.
Relevant Reference 1: Japanese patent application laid-open No. 8-248953.
The conventional music reproduction system, however, has a problem of being unable to offer more suitable music to the occupant of the vehicle because it can make only rough music selection such as selecting music associated with the current position of the vehicle.